Chapter IV The Call of the Drum
The Tennessee troops were to make a last parade before leaving for the war in the Philippines.
All the night before they left a strange, weird feeling had been upon me. For hours I could not sleep, and when I did it seemed as if I were going down a dimly remembered path, hearing a far-off call in far-away mountains, the battle cry of my ancient Aryan people rallying against the Mongrel and the Mongol. Then I awoke with the fire of battle in my heart and the hot sweat of the conflict beaded over my face, to call it a dream. But it was no dream. There are dreams, and there is that which is more than dreams. There is the spirit’s walk into wayside lands.
I rose and dressed. I went out for calmness among my trees. They had been my friends, my thousand-voiced leaf-whispering friends. But in this strange feeling, this fighting mood which, despite all my efforts, had overwhelmed me, I cared for them no longer. And they scorned me. Not one leaf whispered to me. I had not one friend among them. They were no longer my brothers in green. They were merely trees. My soul had been torn up to its very roots by the Hand that had planted it and told to grow into another soul or die!
Everything I had held to in life had reversed itself on me. Every star-enthroned truth which I had worshipped had fallen to earth, a clay idol to mock me with its grinning lying lips of dirt! I had been turned out from my home unjustly; the love of my very life was gone, dead, perhaps; and Elsie—
Nothing since the tragedy that had fallen to Eloise had cut into my soul like that nightmare leap over a rock wall into cold air and the stinging whirl of yellow water and the glory of her courage and unselfishness as she had said, “I’ll bring her back to you, Jack—see if I don’t!”
And there had been the good-by of Tammas and Marget. Tammas could not speak, he could only hold my hand with tears in his eyes. But Marget spoke, kissing me for the first and last time. “Ay, but our Jackie, good-by, ’tis God that stirs up the nest of His eagles. An’ so God bide ye, lad. God bless and God guide ye—for ’tis God that leads ye, Jackie!”
At the cabin Dr. Gottlieb had tried to explain to me the great book he was writing, which was called “The Effect of the Insect Pollen-Gatherers on Flower Life.”
But I would have none of it. I could not listen. I slipped out, knowing he could read it all night to the big arm chair I had sat in, and not know it was empty.
The drum was calling to me—I who had been for peace, for trees, for love, for poems, I knew I must now fight or my soul would die within me, die like a Chinese foot in its wooden shoe.
I saddled Satan and rode over to the Hermitage. Was it this horse, this brave-souled, unafraid brute that had sent the fighting spirit into me, since my first touch of him? For on him I felt that I could ride over a regiment. I walked alone in the moonlight over the grounds of the Hermitage.
How bulwarked, restful and yet martial-walled was the old brick mansion! And down the long avenues of cedars which ran from the gate to the home, I met the fighting ghosts of my ancestors.
Was it a dream or not? But what is the difference, since they are the same. What is the difference?
If a child comes into your home, smiling, from out the sunshine, is it any more your child than the one which enters from out the still, dead night, motherless and homeless, a fantastic waif, but your very own?
I had walked through the old-fashioned garden, rose bordered and lined with hollyhocks and rare old pinks that Aunt Rachel loved. And I had stood bareheaded before the tomb of the old warrior and his bride. I had gone across the meadow to the log cabin they had loved best of all....
Then, very plainly I saw the great fireplace light up with the blaze of hickory logs, and the shadows come and go across the smoked rafters above. And before that fire sat the slim, grim, sword-faced fighter and lover, with a child on one knee and a lamb on the other, even as old Parton had told it.
He turned, smiled, and reaching, took his sword from the wall behind him and, beckoning to me, pointed to the west....
I rushed toward him. The solid door met me, knocking me to my knees on the grass. I arose stunned, but thrilled. My doubts had gone, the spirit of Andrew Jackson pointed me the way. On the grass I knelt for a moment before that hut which is a shrine. A lamb and a child and the sword of the Lord and of Gideon: I thank thee, Lord; for it takes them all to make a man!... I had not slept but had ridden into town to see the Tennessee troops go by in their last parade.
They came by in battalions, the old battle flag of Jackson at their head, and beside it rode old Hawthorne, sitting his horse as gallantly as when in younger days he rode with Forrest and Morgan.
He saw me, smiled, and saluted.
I watched Braxton Bragg go by at the head of his company, and I saw him look covetously at the beautiful horse I rode.
Following an old custom, a fife and drum corps followed. I heard them coming and my blood leaped fiercely as they marched by, playing “The Girl I Left Behind Me.”
It was their last call for enlistment, and as they passed I stepped in behind the big drum, throwing my silver dollar into its head.
So I enlisted for the war.
The old drummer smiled and nodded, the crowd cheered—I looked up—Old Hawthorne had ridden back and sat his horse smiling down on me. “God bless you, Jack, Jack!” he cried. “Do you know that I rode back to see you do it? I knew you would do it—’tis the call of the drum—the blood of the men of your tribe who could both pray and fight! Come, you shall be on my staff. Captain Jack Ballington from the home of Old Hickory.”
I smiled. “General, you are good to me, too good. But let me prove my own worth, if there is any in me. No soldier was ever made except by merit. Give me a chance to make myself. I am going to the war and I am going with you. But under two conditions: that this horse I am riding goes with us, is yours. This is Eloise’s,” I added softly, “and I loved her. ’Tis the only horse in Tennessee fit to carry our General. She gave him to me. I give him to you.”
He was silent; he understood.
“And the other is that you give me a rifle in the ranks.”...
After I had enlisted I wanted to see the homestead again, the hickories that Eloise and I had loved, and to bid my old grandsire farewell.
He was sitting under his favorite elm tree smoking when I rode up. I did not see who was with him until I had dismounted and stood before him, hat off, holding my horse’s reins.
Then I saw that it was Braxton Bragg who was talking excitedly and loudly; and I knew that he had been drinking. He did not speak to me nor see me. The old man did not know me in the gathering darkness.
“I am Jack, Grandfather, Jack Ballington. And I have come to bid you good-by.”
“Ah, Jack—Jack—” he repeated—“and you are my grandson—ha-ha. I’d about forgotten it. And you have come to tell me good-by—why I thought you had gone, somewhere—ha-ha.”
I heard a short laugh from Braxton Bragg. I saw the sneering smile that was unconcealed in his face. I turned on him with fighting anger, cut to the heart. And then I remembered the first lesson of every soldier is to command himself. Very calmly I said, “I have not gone far, sir; only to Dr. Gottlieb’s; but to-morrow I am going to the war. I have enlisted with the First Tennessee, and I felt that it was my duty, sir, to call and tell you good-by.”
Instantly he was on his feet, holding to a crutch he now carried.
“Going to the war! Enlisted with the First Tennessee? By God, sir, do you really mean that?”
“I am, sir,” I said.
He pulled me to him and clasped me. “Jack, Jack, my boy!”
He turned to Braxton Bragg. “Braxton, now by God, sir, this boy is indeed my grandson; the lost has been found, the prodigal has returned! I knew the old Rutherford blood would redeem him yet!”
He laughed happily, still holding me to him. “Braxton, take him by the hand, for ‘by the Eternal,’ as Old Hickory would say, he is the same blood kin as you, and I am going to give him the same chance! Hey there, Thomas! Oh, Thomas!” he called to his old body servant. “Bring me a light, and paper and pencil! I’ll drop a line to Hawthorne—to put you on his staff as Captain. And my check book, Thomas! By God, sir—Jack—my grandson, Jack, I’ll give you a little ready money, only a thousand dollars to see that you go like a soldier and a Rutherford—ha-ha—damn him, I knew he’d do it!”
“I’m going as a private, Grandfather; General Hawthorne has already offered me the rank you suggest—but—”
“You damned mooning fool, you shall not do it!” he cried. “No Rutherford ever went to any war a private. Tut—tut—I’ll fix that. You are now my grandson, Jack.”
His voice fell. He spoke through tears. “Your mother, Jack—Emily—ay, my boy—I can see her now with her sweet dreamy eyes of poetry, the finely chiseled half sad face of religion, the heart of romance and of sorrow. I loved her best of them all—Jack—and you are her son—my grandson.”
“Grandfather,” I said, “I thank you, and I shall try to be worthy of you and of my mother and my father who died a gentleman. But I shall ask only for this horse, for our General to ride, and that he shall be near me, for I promised Eloise I would always care for him. She gave him to me,” I added.
Instantly Braxton Bragg was on his feet.
“Eloise never owned him. Why, it’s what I have come by for, Grandfather. What you had just promised me I could have when he rode up.” He came up to me, catching at the reins. “No sir, you shall never ride him off this place, he is mine.”
My grandfather rose and stood between us. “Sit down, Braxton Bragg,” he said angrily. “You’ve been drinking and you’ve not too much sense when you are sober. Now, I had forgotten—I forget so much of late: come to think of it, it was Eloise’s horse, no one else could touch him, and the way that girl could ride him—no—no—if she gave him to Jack he shall have him.”
“He has lied,” Braxton Bragg cried, pushing the old man angrily aside to shoulder up to me. “He is lying. She didn’t give him the horse—”
My fist shut the rest of his words in his mouth. I felt the cut of his teeth where my knuckles struck them as I sent him suddenly full length on the ground.
He tried to rise, drawing his Colt’s. But my grandfather struck it from his hand with his crutch, knocking the weapon across the road.
Cursing he tried to rise, but I was on him, my knee on his breast, his two arms pinned to the ground.
“Grandfather,” I said, “I don’t want to hurt him, but you heard him give me the lie.”
“I did,” said the old man grimly. “I did, and I waited to see if you would strike. If you had not, I was going to knock you down with my crutch! Mount your horse and go to war, Jack Ballington, my grandson; for by the living God I know now I’ll have a fighter in that war worthy the name of Rutherford when this cur turns coward and quits!”